A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr

Argues that the roots of the fatal encounter between Hamilton and Burr lay not in Burr's political or private conduct, but in Hamilton's conflicted history and character

In this extensively researched and densely written study, Rogow (James Forrestal) attempts to restore Burr's reputation, which was shattered after he shot and killed Hamilton in 1804 during a duel that Burr provoked because Hamilton refused to apologize for spreading an unspecified slur about Burr. Although the author documents that the two men collaborated in court cases and met socially, Hamilton, a Federalist, and Burr, who had Republican ties, were bitter political enemies. According to Rogow, Hamilton was preoccupied with destroying Burr's career; he cites as evidence Hamilton's support for Jefferson, whom he disliked, instead of Burr during the 1800 presidential election. Rogow attributes Hamilton's obsession to envy of Burr's privileged birth, as contrasted with Hamilton's illegitimacy. He also discusses an interesting conjecture, drawn from earlier biographies, that Burr and Hamilton were rivals for the affections of the same woman. Rogow dismisses an account that circulated after the duel that a gallant Hamilton fired into the air rather than shooting at Burr. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A lively biography of two unconventional men whose entwined lives ended in tragedy. Political scientist Rogow (Thomas Hobbes, 1986, etc.) retells the well-known story (thanks in large part to Gore Vidals novel Burr) of the clash of Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist, and Aaron Burr, the Republican, whose theoretical disputes over three decades led to the duel in which Hamilton died. Rogows contribution to the literature, apart from his having turned in a readable and well-researched work, is his tracing the feud to the personal level: Among other things, Hamilton did not like Burr because Burr, although an orphan, came from a relatively privileged background, whereas Hamilton was the illegitimate and unacknowledged son of a Jamaican planter; Burr did not like Hamilton because Hamilton competed with him for political positions and the favors of an evident abundance of married women in New York society. The two also fought on a more elevated plane, arguing bitterly, for instance, over the creation of a federal banking system, Hamiltons brainchild. Hamilton, it seems, was happy to loathe Burr for any reason whatever, and he made his hatred widely known. Burr, hapless and always something of a political outsider, was no match for the more polished and eloquent Hamilton in debate; still, Hamilton, whom Rogow believes was a manic-depressive, fixated on Burr rather than on Burrs more imposing ally, Thomas Jefferson, so that the more Burr failed in his political objectives, the more Hamilton saw him as a threat to himself, the Federalist Party, and the country. In the end Hamiltons misguided loathing led to his death, but also to Burrs undoing, for no political body in the country wished to sponsor the killer of the popular Hamilton. While retelling the story of two of its deeply troubled representatives, Rogow paints a carefully detailed picture of revolutionary and early federal American society. (6 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Those who consider today's politics a vicious affair might brush up on Hamilton and Burr, whose 1804 duel ended the political career of Burr, who was then our vice president, and took the life of Hamilton, earlier George Washington's great Treasury secretary. The puzzle of Hamilton's enmity toward Burr long has been as much a matter for the psychologist as the historian, and Rogow (Thomas Hobbes, LJ 5/15/86) has at it both ways in his study of their fateful relationship. A careful weighing of known facts, elegant in its style, his account is plausible, if not entirely convincing, kinder to Burr and harsher to Hamilton than the historical norm, while denser in detail on the politics of the early republic than some readers will care to absorb. Interesting but optional for academic and public libraries.?Robert F. Nardini, N. Chichester, NH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.